This invention relates in general to a technique for diagnosing Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and more particularly to a technique for measuring an individual""s peripheral temperature to determine values indicative of ADD.
ADD (with and without hyperactivity) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood as well as among the most prevalent health conditions affecting school-aged children. Between 4% and 12% of school age children (several millions) are affected. $3 billion is spent annually on behalf of students with ADD. Moreover, in the general population, 9.2% of males and 2.9% of females are found to have behavior consistent with ADD. Upwards of 10 million adults may be affected.
ADD is a difficult disorder to diagnose. The core symptoms of ADD in children include inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADD children may experience significant functional problems, such as school difficulties, academic underachievement, poor relationships with family and peers, and low self-esteem. Adults with ADD often have a history of losing jobs, impulsive actions, substance abuse, and broken marriages. ADD often goes undiagnosed if not caught at an early age and affects many adults who may not be aware of the condition. ADD has many look-alike causes (family situations, motivations) and co-morbid conditions (depression, anxiety, learning disabilities).
Diagnosis of ADD involves a process of elimination using written and verbal tests. However, there is no one objective, independent valid test for ADD. Various objective techniques have been proposed but have not yet attained acceptance. These include:
1. The eye problem called convergence insufficiency was found to be three times more common in children with ADD than in other children by University of California, San Diego researchers.
2. Infrared tracking to measure difficult-to-detect movements of children during attention tests combined with functional MRI imaging of the brain were used by psychiatrists at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts to diagnose ADD in a small group of children (Nature Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 4, April 2000, Pages 470-473).
3. Techniques based on EEG biofeedback for the diagnoses and treatment of ADD are described by Lubar (Biofeedback and Self-Regulation, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1991, Pages 201-225).
4. U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,310, issued Jun. 22, 1999, inventor Brown, discloses a video game for the diagnosis and treatment of ADD.
5. U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,100, issued Dec. 27, 1994, inventors Pope et al., discloses a method of using a video game coupled with brain wave detection to treat patients with ADD.
6. Dr. Albert Rizzo of the Integrated Media Systems Center of the University of Southern California has used Virtual Reality techniques for the detection and treatment of ADD.
Although skin temperature spectral characteristics have been shown to indicate stress-related changes of peripheral vasomotor activity in normal subjects, there has been no disclosure of use of variations in skin-temperature response to assist in diagnosing ADD. (See: Biofeedback and Self-Regulation, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1995).
There is thus a need for a simple, inexpensive, and reliable technique for assisting in the diagnosis of ADD.
According to the present invention, there is provided a solution to the problems and fulfillment of the needs discussed above.
According to a feature of the present invention, there is provided a method of determining whether an individual has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) comprising:
sampling the peripheral skin temperature of a human subject during a predetermined time interval when the subject is in an inactive state to provide sampled peripheral skin temperature data and analyzing the sampled peripheral skin temperature data for a pre-selected parameter, to determine whether said pre-selected parameter has a value indicative of ADD.
The invention has the following advantages.
1. A technique for diagnosing ADD is provided which is simple, inexpensive and reliable.